


To Thine Own Self be True

by HoodEx



Series: Under One Roof [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Brotherly Love, Bruce Wayne is a Good Dad, Dick is a Good Older Brother, Dick's a perfectionist, Gen, Jason is sort of a Good Younger Brother, Sibling squabbles, Struggle with parental disappointment, There is some cursing involved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-14
Updated: 2017-08-14
Packaged: 2018-12-15 11:11:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11804826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HoodEx/pseuds/HoodEx
Summary: “Dick, hurry up!”“Jason,” Bruce appears from the kitchen in a pair of slacks and a dress shirt, glare matching the one Damian’s still directing at Tim. “You’re not five so why are you yelling at the dinner table?”Jason takes a swig from his glass of cold water. “What? When a baby is hungry, it cries for its mom until it’s fed. I’m doing the same thing.” He chugs more water down, apparently in need of something cool after the hot tea he finished in the cave.Tim snorts and places his phone on the table. “Did you just imply that Dick is your mom and you need him to breastfeed you?”OR the one where Dick is a perfectionist, Jason tries to knock some sense into his head, and there is inappropriate behavior at the dinner table.





	To Thine Own Self be True

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place in a world where Dick, Jason, Tim, and Damian are closer in age and are all still living with Bruce at the manor. Vigilante identities aren't really important here, but Dick is Nightwing, Jason is Red Hood (he didn't die but was still nearly killed by the Joker), Tim is Robin, and Damian is waiting a few years before he takes the Robin mantle. The batkids all attend school and are generally more grounded/act their age since they've grown up with each other. The only reason I mention this is because Dick competes in gymnastics/acrobatic competitions and the batkids act less mature than how they're depicted in comics.  
> Here's their ages in case you're curious:  
> Dick: 16  
> Jason: 14  
> Tim: 12  
> Damian: 9

The cave is particularly cold today. Jason takes one step inside of it and feels like he’s suddenly living in the Snow Miser’s palace. Damn it, now that song is stuck in his head and it’s no where near Christmas. He takes a second to decide whether or not he wants to go get his music to try and overpower the tune, but decides against it in favor of seeking out the closest heat source. There’s a neatly folded stack of sweatshirts that are kept down here for moments like this. Jason examines his choices before taking a red one from Dick’s pile just to piss him off. Besides, at least this way he can keep his hands covered and stretch out the material over his knees for ultimate warmth.

He takes his book towards the brand new fuzzy beanbag chair he managed to smuggle in here earlier and plops down in it with a content sigh. The beans inside rustle as he gets comfortable and contorts his legs underneath the sweatshirt. The chill from before is less noticeable now, but that damn obnoxious song is still going through his head. Jason knows he’s going to be banging his head against the wall in a few hours if it doesn’t stop. For now though, he tries to push it to the back of his mind and opens up his copy of _Hamlet_ to where he left off paraphrasing in the margins. He needs to finish it up this week and turn it in next Monday for bonus points, even though he technically doesn’t need them. He just wants the best grade possible. Mostly because he likes having good grades, but also so he can rub his A’s in Tim’s face. Besides, he’s been meaning to read this play to figure out the context of the skull he’s seen posters of. There’s got to be some badass meaning to it.

Jason sets to work and gets lost in the writing for the next thirty minutes, occasionally adding new ink smudges to the side of his hand where he drags it on the pages. He’ll admit, trying to read in the low lighting of the cave wasn’t the best idea, even though it’s way better than having to listen to Tim and Damian screeching over the new video game they got. Which, by the way, Jason isn’t allowed to play yet because he broke Tim’s tablet yesterday. It’s not like he did it on purpose. Dangling it over the stairs as a threat and then accidentally dropping it shouldn’t warrant punishment, in Jason’s opinion. Alfred and Bruce thought differently, hence him being forbidden to touch any video games for the next three weeks. It doesn’t totally suck though. Dick is also banned from video games for a reason Jason is not privy to know, and misery loves company, so Dick and him have been working on a few cases without Bruce knowing. Getting one up on the old man has proved to be more entertaining than video games anyways.

Another ten or so minutes pass. Jason pauses over a particular stanza to try and figure out what the hell Shakespeare is trying to say. He cracks his knuckles and stretches his fingers while he thinks, only to get distracted when the entrance to the bat cave opens, revealing Dick in obnoxiously bright neon colored clothes. He’s wearing the shorts Jason specifically told him to stop wearing. They show off way more skin than is necessary when Dick bends over, but no matter how many times Jason points this out, Dick just doesn’t give a shit.

Jason watches him descend down the stairs before calling out, “Hey, would you come here a second and look at this?” He flaps his book in the air for Dick to see. Dick walks over with a spring in his step.

“Nice bean bag,” Dick says before flopping down onto it and jostling Jason from his comfortable perch. “I used to have one of these things way back in the day. Wasn’t nearly as comfy as this one.” He shifts his hips in a new position so they aren’t sitting on top of each other. Jason is still squished against his side regardless.

“Well this one’s mine, so don’t get any ideas,” Jason says, narrowing his eyes.

“You can wear my clothes and I can’t use your bean bag?” Dick asks, pointedly looking at the sweatshirt Jason is still balled up in. “You’re stretching it out,” he whines, nearly sending them both to the floor when he gets all up in Jason’s space and tries to pull the end of the sweatshirt free from around Jason’s knees.

“Stop!” Jason starts smacking Dick over the head with his book. He’s just gotten completely warm, okay? He didn’t wait over thirty minutes for his body to heat up only to have his annoying brother ruin his progress over a stretched sweatshirt. “Seriously, stop. I’ll wear it like normal if you go get me a blanket,” he compromises.

Dick eyes him for a moment and then abruptly stops trying to pry the material away. He gets up and returns with a large blanket, which he wraps around both of them as soon as he settles back into the bean bag. Jason shoves his marked up book into his hands.

“You read _Hamlet_ last year, right? Make yourself useful as an older brother and help me.”

Dick carefully plucks the book from his hands and begins to skim Jason’s notes to get caught up. They work on the paraphrase together, tossing possibilities back and forth until they finally come up with a modern English description that makes sense. Jason mostly figures it out for himself, which is no surprise, considering Dick’s first language isn’t English. Still, it’s nice to get a second opinion on it. Usually Alfred is the only one who cares enough or has the time to double check his homework.

“Well, that took more brain power than it should have,” Dick says with a weary sigh, ruffling Jason’s messy hair before getting up and taking his warmth with him. Jason manages to swat him on the leg before he gets too far. “I’m going to work on my routine for a bit. You want to spar when I’m done?”

Here’s the thing. Jason likes sparring with Dick almost nearly as much as he likes sparring with Bruce. It’s a good opportunity for Jason to learn how to fight against someone as fast and flexible as his older brother, as well as helping him learn to ignore taunts, which is also right up Dick’s alley. However, Jason knows from personal experience how sloppy Dick gets when he goes from doing hardcore acrobatic workouts, to intense sparring, and then to an even more physically demanding patrol as Nightwing. His legs shake a little more than they should when he sticks a landing, his punches don’t connect as well, and he’s more likely to nod off while doing surveillance. Sure, he gets the job done in the end, but he pushes himself too hard. It’s one of the things Jason’s come to both admire and hate about him in the years that he’s known him.

Instead of saying yes like he wants to, Jason says, “I’ve got more homework to finish before patrol. Put me down for Sunday night though.” Alfred doesn’t let them patrol for very long on Sundays.

Dick mimes writing in his imaginary calendar, causing the chalk on his hands to flutter to the ground in a white puff. “Done and done. Throw down with Jay at 6:00 on Sunday. Be there or be square,” he says, flexing his muscles for dramatic effect.

“I cannot take you seriously in that outfit,” Jason says. “Now quit bugging me so I can go back to reading about Hamlet’s emo phase.”

Dick bows at the waist. “As you wish, Sweet Prince.”

Jason makes a face at the nickname, which makes Dick laugh. They end up ignoring each other after that, both invested in their work. Jason is mostly caught up in the text, but every now and then he’ll hear the sound of Dick’s hands making contact with the uneven bars, the smack of his feet against the plush safety mats, or he’ll hear him gasping for breath after running through his routine. A few swears are mixed in here and there. Jason’s heard it all before.

It reminds him of the first time he came into the cave and saw the trapeze and gymnastics equipment in the corner. He remembers how amazing it was to actually see Dick maneuver around the equipment and perform a few of the flips Jason had seen him do as Robin on TV. He’d been so excited to try it out for himself, even though it didn’t ever seem like he’d get the chance to when he came to the manor. Dick didn’t trust Jason and didn’t really want anything to do with him at first. He’d brush Jason off all the time when he asked to use the equipment.

It took a few weeks, but once Dick started warming up to him, Dick practically made it his mission to get Jason up on the trapeze. Jason remembers the wide grin and the flourish of hand motions Dick used the first day he got to share his family’s legacy. It had all been very exciting and fun when they went over a few simple exercises. As time went on, Jason lost the motivation for it and stopped trying somewhere along the way. Regardless, he would still watch from the floor while Dick did his routine, and they would both whip their heads around to Alfred whenever Dick got frustrated and started cursing.

All these years later and Jason still instinctually looks around for Alfred when he hears a particularly creative line of swears from Dick, some in English and some in Romani. Jason may not have taken the time to learn Romani like he has with other languages, but he sure as hell knows all the expletives of Dick’s mother tongue.

Jason stands from his comfortable position and swaddles the blanket around himself before heading over to Dick’s corner of the cave. “What’s got you so worked up? You’re going to wake the bats up at this rate,” Jason says, giving a quick glance to the hundreds of hanging bats on the ceiling of the cave. Somewhere among them is Jason’s favorite bat, Morticia.

He comes to an abrupt stop when he see’s Dick with both of his hands threaded through his hair in a tight grip, chest heaving, and eyes pinched. He looks frustrated to the point of either crying or throwing something. It could go either way, really. Jason wants to laugh because he looks pretty ridiculous, especially in that brightly lit outfit. He bites his tongue for the moment.

Dick doesn’t even spare him a glance, he just says, “I can’t get it right. I’ve tried over and over and I just…” he sighs deeply through his nose and runs his tongue over the sweat on his lip. “I just can’t.”

Jason rolls his eyes. “Stop being a drama queen. Get back up there and let me see what you’re doing.” Lord knows Dick will continue to be in a sour mood for the rest of the night unless this gets resolved.

He gets Dick’s most expressive bitch face in response, pouty lips and all, to which Jason gives him the finger. Pettiness out of the way, Dick starts to get into position and mumbles under his breath about what he’s doing and what he thinks he’s doing wrong. Jason takes notes as soon as he begins the first part of his routine on the rings. From what Jason’s seen over the years, Dick’s routine consists of a mix between acrobatics and gymnastics. He’s seen him do a lot of different things and contort himself in ways Jason couldn’t replicate, so he’s a little doubtful that there’s a problem area here.

Sure enough, after Dick is climbing back down onto the safety mat, sweating and out of breath, Jason still has no idea what Dick could possibly be upset over. Everything he did was executed just right.

“See?” Dick says after taking a long drag from his water bottle. “It’s not perfect.”

Jason stares at him for a moment.

“I don’t know what kind of messed up expectations you have for yourself, but that looked solid to me,” Jason says, shrugging. “You’re overthinking it.”

“I’m not,” Dick insists. He runs a hand through his sweat soaked hair. “Just yesterday Bruce told me I needed to tighten up my flips to make them look cleaner for the competition on Saturday. Obviously I’m making mistakes.”

Jason knows what’s wrong as soon as Dick mentions Bruce’s name. Of course Dick’s insecurities revolve back around to Bruce. Jason’s never seen any of his brother’s crave Bruce’s approval like Dick does. Well, other than when Damian first got here and had to make a place for himself in their lives, but other than that particular situation, its always been Dick who’s run the extra mile when Bruce tells him to. No wonder he’s been driving himself crazy over this routine for the past hour and a half if Bruce told him he wasn’t good enough.

“Does Bruce look like a professional acrobat to you?” Jason crosses his arms under the blanket. He’s actually starting to feel a little too warm for it now after watching Dick sweat through his shirt. “He’s like one of those art teachers that will give you a 99 on every assignment because there’s always room for improvement. But that’s total BS, right? Some things are as perfect as they can possibly be. Your routine falls under that category.”

Dick looks like he wants to protest, or worse, deflect from the conversation entirely. He’s already pasting on a fake smile and everything. Jason understands how awkward it is to talk about insecurities, and normally he’d let Dick get away with it, but he figures he might as well try to push a little harder today since Dick helped him with the Shakespeare thing. You know, good karma and all that shit.

“Before yesterday you didn’t have any doubts about the routine,” Jason points out before Dick can open his mouth. “You know exactly what you’re doing because you’re a Flying Grayson, arguably one of the best acrobats I know. No one at that competition has your skill level. Hell, you could walk into the Olympic games tomorrow and win gold in every category.” He can feel the tips of his ears burning admitting it. It’s not so embarrassing since Dick is staring at the ground with rosy cheeks of his own. “Please don’t make me say anything else. I hope you realize that stroking your ego is making me want to projectile vomit all over you.”

Dick’s nose scrunches up. “Ew.” After a few seconds, he finally looks up through his fringe. “And thanks for… you know. Thanks.”

There’s an awkward moment where they just stare at each other, not sure what to do when they’re both being nice in the same day. It’s definitely an odd occurrence. Jason expects a full blowout between them by the time they go to bed tonight. It’s the only thing that will restore balance to their relationship.

“Would you please go take a shower now?” Jason asks. “You’re offending Morticia with your nasty stench.”

They both look up towards the ceiling as if they can actually pick Morticia out of the massive cluster of bats that are slumbering together in the dark crevices of the cave. She’s somewhere in there, hopefully giving Dick’s favorite bat, Zubat, hell for eating the majority of the food that’s left out for them daily. Jason tries to sneak her extra when he see’s her, but somehow Zubat, the fat fuck, always swarms when he does. Dick makes excuses for him by saying he probably had a rough childhood, and isn’t it crazy that Jason can actually relate to that?

“It can’t be that bad,” Dick says, taking a sniff under his armpits. “Otherwise Zubat would’ve already come down here to feast on me.”

The mental image of that has Jason laughing before he can stop himself. “Next time you’re knocked unconscious in the med bay, I’m going to cover you in fruit just to see that happen.” Bruce might throw a fit about it, but it’s totally going to happen. There’s no way Jason is going to pass up the opportunity.

“I feel like it would be funnier to see Zubat eating off of Bruce while he’s still in the bat suit,” Dick says, heading towards the showers. “Then that could be our Christmas card to the League.”

Jason’s eyes widen at the possibilities. Sometimes he really loves Dick’s dorky brain.

“Whatever it is that you’re thinking, Master Jason, I suggest you put a stop to it right now,” Alfred’s voice comes from close by, making Jason whip around and nearly trip over his blanket. Sure enough, Alfred is standing a few feet behind him with a cup of tea in his right hand. He’s giving Jason a stern look that he usually reserves for worse occasions.

“Is that tea for me?” Jason asks instead of addressing Alfred’s comment.

Alfred’s brows are still furrowed but he passes the glass over anyways. “Yes, it is. I figured you might want some since it’s rather chilly down here.” He eyes Jason’s blanket and sweatshirt. “Although I can see you have found a solution for that.”

“Thanks,” Jason says after taking a sip. It’s made exactly the way he likes it. Except now the extra heat has definitely made it too hot to wear the blanket. He unravels it from around himself and Alfred dutifully holds out a hand for it.

“Master Bruce just got home from work, so dinner will be ready in ten minutes. If you would relay the message to Master Dick and then wash up before coming to the table, that would be appreciated.”

“Will do,” Jason salutes. He finishes off his tea before ducking his head into the washroom. “Hey Dickie, dinner is going to be ready in less than ten minutes.” He doesn’t wait for a response. He simply gathers his tea cup and book and then goes up to his room to use the bathroom.

A pang of hunger hits him as soon as he smells the ribs, asparagus, and scalloped potatoes Alfred cooked up. He hasn’t eaten anything since lunch and he’s starving. Jason see’s his red colored placemat next to Damian’s green one, which means Alfred intends for him to sit there. He sinks down into the plush seat with a heavy sigh. Beside him, Damian has his arms crossed and looks particularly pissed off about something.

“Todd, when does your punishment end?” Damian asks, not bothering to look in Jason’s direction. “I need you to beat every one of Drake’s high scores.” His eyes are narrowed at Tim, who’s sitting across from Jason.

Tim’s ignoring them in favor of looking at his cell phone. Judging by the tension between the two, it’s easy to guess why they’re in this particular seating arrangement. Normally Jason sits next to Tim because Tim typically eats less and Jason doesn’t have to compete with him for food portions. Dick and Damian almost always sit next to each other since they’re usually always on good terms and won’t start shit, unlike Dick and Jason, who are never allowed to sit next to or across from each other. It became a rule when they were younger due to all the chaos Bruce and Alfred had to endure. There were many cases of stealing food, spitting food, throwing food, and kicking shins before Alfred had enough and declared that they could only sit diagonally from one other for the rest of their lives.

“Not for another three weeks,” Jason says, shifting the plate of ribs towards him. He deserves first dibs since last night Bruce and Tim sucked up the lasagna like vacuums. “Dick, hurry up!” he yells. There’s a good chance Dick is upstairs by now and can hear him. He twists in his seat until his knees are up and against the back of the chair. “The longer I sit here salivating, the more I start to look like the Other Mother in Coraline.”

“Jason,” Bruce appears from the kitchen in a pair of slacks and a dress shirt, glare matching the one Damian’s still directing at Tim. “You’re not five so why are you yelling at the dinner table?”

Jason takes a swig from his glass of cold water. “What? When a baby is hungry, it cries for its mom until it’s fed. I’m doing the same thing.” He chugs more water down, apparently in need of something cool after the hot tea he finished in the cave.

Tim snorts and places his phone on the table. “Did you just imply that Dick is your mom and you need him to breastfeed you?”

Water goes flying from Jason’s mouth and dribbles out of his nose. He coughs to dispel it from his throat, eyes watering. Bruce is suddenly beside him and pats him on the back.

“That was a completely inappropriate comment, Drake!” Damian hisses over the sound of Jason’s violent coughs, leaning forward over the table to try and get in Tim’s space. His abrupt movement makes the tablecloth jerk to where they’re sitting. “And Todd,” Damian swings around to Jason, “your disgusting display has gotten water and spit all over the silverware.”

Jason thumps his chest until he can finally speak, though his voice comes out small and raspy. “Why in the hell would you put that image in my head?” He asks Tim around another cough. Tim is grinning like this is the most entertainment he’s had all week.

Tim raises both of his hands in the air. “I just pointed it out.” He sinks back into his chair. “Though I don’t think I’ll ever be able to be in the same room as you, Dick, and a glass of milk now—”

“Tim,” Bruce cuts him off immediately, the conversation obviously making him just as uncomfortable as Jason. “I don’t want to hear one more word about that. Bring it up again and I’ll bench you for two nights,” he warns.

The amused grin slowly slides off Tim’s face. He makes a motion like he’s zipping his lips and then goes back to his phone. Damian looks like he wants to launch himself across the table to beat Tim’s face black and blue. He probably would if not for Bruce pushing down on his shoulders to make him sit properly in his chair.

Jason continues rubbing his eyes to try and stop them from watering while Bruce collects all the plates and silverware that got sprayed during Jason’s fit. “At least the ribs survived,” Bruce mutters under his breath before heading back into the kitchen.

As soon as he’s gone, Damian turns to Jason and begins talking his ear off about the new video game and how Tim was cheating the whole time. Jason listens with half an ear, nodding every now and then so Damian will feel like someone gives a shit, even though he couldn’t care less. Thankfully, the kid starts to settle down by the time Bruce returns to the table with new plates, Dick not that far behind him. Jason feels a sharp sting across the back of his head as soon as Dick walks past his chair.

“Ow!” Jason clutches his head, eyes immediately drilling into Dick’s back. “The heck was that for, phallic face?”

“Jason,” Bruce says, the muscles in his arms flexing at the sudden tension in his shoulders. “What did I tell you about yelling?”

Jason sputters. “Are you serious? He just hit me for no reason!”

Dick’s chair squeaks when he sits on it. “Oh please, it was just a love tap.” There’s a grin he’s trying to hide that says otherwise. “And it wasn’t for no reason.” He grabs the sweatshirt he’s wearing, the one Jason had on in the cave, and pulls the material up for everyone to see. “It’s stretched out thanks to you and your big ogre knees.”

Jason scowls at him.

“Actually,” Tim intervenes, putting his phone aside once again, “Shrek’s knees were pretty average sized compared to the rest of his body.” Normally Jason would just ignore his comments, but since Tim’s on his side, he nods his head rigorously to show his agreement.

“Leave it to Drake to add commentary when defending his own species,” Damian says in retaliation. There’s obvious glee in his eyes when Tim’s lip curls at the remark. Jason has to refrain himself from giving Damian a high five because that was a decent comeback. Even Dick looks torn between reprimanding their little brother and outright smiling at him.

“All right, that’s enough,” Bruce says, eyes glancing at the fork that Tim’s hand is creeping towards. “I don’t want to hear anymore talking. Tim, you had better only use that fork for the ribs on your plate. Damian, the video game punishment will apply to you as well if you don’t lay off Tim. Jason, raise your voice again and I will take all your books away so you can’t do homework. Dick, it’s just a sweatshirt. You’ve got a hundred more, so get over it.” He takes a seat with a heavy sigh, and before Jason can react, he snags the plate of ribs and drags them towards himself.

Jason opens his mouth to protest, because hey, he had dibs on that plate first, but Bruce’s punishment comes to the forefront of his mind. He sighs and dives for the scalloped potatoes instead, just managing to snag them from Damian’s grasp. Jason dodges the pinch Damian aims at his arm and bats him away as casually as possible. Pissing off Bruce further at this point would probably get his dinner taken away altogether, so he quickly takes his share of food and then passes the bowl back to Damian before his brother’s head explodes.

Dinner continues like normal, minus any chatter. Tim’s obnoxious way of chewing is the only real sound that breaks up the silence. Dick is obviously the only one bothered by it if the way he keeps pausing to twirl his knife around his fingers is any indication. Jason raises a brow at him and makes a show of sticking his tongue out with half eaten bites of meat still on it. He glances back at Bruce every now and then to make sure he’s not looking in his direction. He’s just about to do it again when he hears a clatter and the sound of Dick groaning.

“Aw man,” Dick says, lifting up the tablecloth. “Dropped my fork.” He then scoots his chair back and disappears underneath the table. Jason only has a few second to be suspicious before he feels Dick grab his leg hair and twist. He jerks his leg at the burning sensation and drops his own silverware back onto his plate. He just barely refrains from cursing, if only because he knows he’ll have to put money in Alfred’s jar.

“Dick, I swear to God, you’re lucky we’re not patrolling together tonight. Otherwise I would shoot you,” Jason says, kicking blindly to try and hit Dick in the face. He feels his foot connect with Dick’s hip, but that doesn’t deter Dick’s snickering.

“Why would you waste a shot on Grayson when Drake is obviously the more desirable target?” Damian asks, waving a forked potato around in Tim’s direction.

He waves it to the left and Jason tracks the movement, consequently making him look directly into Bruce’s eyes. The man’s anger and displeasure is palpable from his downturned mouth alone. Jason feels unease settle over his skin. They not only poked the bear, they sprayed it in the eyes with bear repellent. Surely a mauling is inevitable. Well, unless Jason can successfully divert his attention away from all the chaos around them. Surprisingly, it doesn’t take that long for an idea to pop into his head. Jason grabs onto it like a lifeline.

“Hey Bruce,” Jason says, capturing the attention of everyone in the room. He glances at Dick, who’s peeking out from the tablecloth on the floor, and feels a pang of regret before he says, “Did you tell Dick to work on his flips for the competition?”

There’s a sudden quietness about the room that seems unnatural compared to the noise from a few second ago. Jason can see a stark streak of red spread over Dick’s face before his brother disappears back under the table altogether. Bruce, Tim, and Damian all look incredibly confused by the drastic change of conversation. Bruce is staring at him like he still wants to reprimand him, but is also curious enough to see where he’s going with this. Tim continues to suck on a rib, furrowed brows conveying interest. Damian lifts the tablecloth to peek at Dick under the table.

Jason clears his throat. “I know you think he sucks or whatever.” He turns his attention to the tablecloth and rubs his finger over the texture of it. There’s a splatter of barbecue sauce on it that he avoids. “But I just saw his routine and it looks fine to me. I don’t understand what you found so disappointing about it.”

Jason can feel his heart pounding at the prolonged silence from the other members of his family. Although, Tim and Damian are now looking at Bruce like he’s some kind of alien, untrustworthy species. Even they seem to think the idea of Bruce disapproving of Dick’s routine is a strange concept. Bruce is blinking slowly, obviously gathering his thoughts. His face is morphed into the same expression he gets after tasting a lemon.

Then, almost hesitantly, Bruce says, “I’m not disappointed with Dick’s routine. Where’d you get that idea?”

Well, Jason’s basically thrown Dick under the bus already, might as well be his executioner since Dick said he had ogre knees. He makes a show of pointing to the table and jabbing at it multiple times. Damian grabs the tablecloth in his fist and lifts it in the air.

“Grayson, your presence is needed.” He drops the tablecloth and crosses his arms, clearly waiting for his demands to be met.

Tim snorts. “Wow, great tactic you got there.”

“Drake, please don’t speak to me until you’ve cleaned your face. You look like a cannibal,” Damian sneers, indicating to the barbecue sauce smeared around Tim’s mouth and chin.

There’s a bark of laughter from under the table. Jason uses his foot to search for Dick’s location and finds him directly in the middle of the table. He prods him with his big toe.

“Would you come up here already and address the situation I put you in,” Jason sighs. At this point he just wants to go back and eat his food in peace, but first they’ve got to fix the can of worms Jason opened. His brothers will thank him later when they realize he distracted Bruce from banishing them to the woods.

Sure enough, Dick finally emerges from his hiding spot and crawls back into a proper sitting position at the table. There’s still a bit of a blush on his cheeks, but he doesn’t look as nervous as Jason expected him to. Instead, he stares right at Bruce and purses his lips.

“Yesterday you told me to tighten my flips, so that’s what I worked on today,” Dick says. “Jason’s just being overdramatic and making it a bigger deal than it needs to be.”

Jason rolls his eyes. “Wow, I can’t believe the drama queen of the house just called me overdramatic. And don’t even try to pretend like you’re not upset. That little display I saw downstairs—”

“Jason,” Dick glares at him, “just drop it.”

“Let’s not drop it,” Bruce says. His chin is resting on his crossed hands and his attention is solely on Dick. “You’re upset because of the comment I made yesterday.” Dick pauses for a few seconds and then nods. Bruce sighs deeply. “I didn’t mean for you to take it as serious criticism. I thought you realized I was joking.”

Dick does a double take. “Are you serious? That is not what a joke is supposed to sound like.”

From what Jason’s seen over the years, Dick and Alfred are the best at picking up on when Bruce is joking and when he’s not. Even then, it’s still a 50/50 chance that they’ll guess right. Jason will just choose random times to take what he says as humor. He doesn’t blame Dick for not being able to distinguish Bruce’s rare amusement from his criticism.

Bruce grumbles something under his breath. “Apparently humor doesn’t come across well when eating a burrito.”

Tim chokes on the rib in his mouth and Damian looks deliriously happy about it.

“That is a sentence I never knew I wanted to hear come out of your mouth until this moment,” Tim says once he’s taken a swig of water. “Since when do you eat burritos?”

Bruce shifts in his seat and looks ready to ignore the question altogether. Jason’s too thrilled about the newfound information to do anything but stare with his mouth open.

“Oh come on,” Dick says. He looks ten times lighter than he did just a few minutes ago. “You’re telling me you guys have never found Bruce’s burrito stash?”

“I have,” Damian raises his hand. “It’s under—”

“Damian,” Bruce interrupts with a steely look, “some things are better left unsaid.” He starts to get up from his seat and picks up his plate. He realizes they’re all still staring at him. “Bring it up again and you’re all doing suicide sprints every day for the next two weeks.” He pauses. “And Dick, your routine is perfectly fine. Your sarcasm detecting skills could obviously use some work though.”

All four of them crane their heads to watch him go. Jason waits until he’s left the room entirely before he leans over the table and whispers to Dick, “Why is he so testy about his burritos?” He slams his hand on the table. “Also, how the hell did you and demon brat know about his stash and I’m only just now hearing about it?”

Tim cackles. “This is amazing.” His fingers are already flying a mile a minute on his phone.

“He only eats them when his bowels are—”

“Ew!” Jason covers his ears. “Lalalala I’m not hearing this right now. Please never speak of it again.”

Even Damian scrunches his nose in displeasure.

Dick’s grin widens and then he starts collecting his plate and silverware as well. “If you want to find the burritos… just follow Zubat.”

Jason can’t help but laugh at the image of Dick’s dopey bat sniffing out Bruce’s stash like he’s some kind of highly trained dog. He’s got to get a tracker on that bat as soon as possible. He’ll have to do it tomorrow while Bruce is still at work. Right now though he has to finish up an assignment before patrol starts. He chokes down what’s left on his plate and drops it off with Alfred in the kitchen before heading up to his room.

He works diligently on his math homework for an hour. It’s some kind of statistics bullshit that’s not too hard, but is still a headache to do. He manages to work through the majority of the questions with no problem. There’s only one or two that he’s not a hundred percent sure about and wants a second opinion on. While English may not be Dick’s best subject, math definitely is, making him the most logical person to talk to. Jason loathes the idea of asking him for homework help twice in one day, because Dick will definitely want something in return at some point, but he’s too tired to push his brain any harder than necessary. He’s also not in the mood to trip over the cluster of shit that’s piled in Dick’s room, which makes him resort to the easiest way to get his attention.

He sucks in a huge breath and then belts, “Diiiick, I need to borrow your brain for a second.”

He has to wait for his voice to stop echoing through the halls before he can hear the slight shuffle of Dick’s socks along the wood floor. Jason can tell he’s deliberately stopping every few seconds in an attempt to piss him off. It’s crazy how they both know what buttons to push to annoy each other the most. After what seems like forever, Dick appears with a pen tucked behind his ear and his tablet nestled under his arm. “You rang, Jay Jay?” He smiles innocently and slips behind Jason’s chair to lean over his shoulder.

Jason carefully refrains from yelling at him. There’s no telling what lies Dick might write up on his homework if he retaliates right now. “Yeah, can you double check these for me?” He circles a few of the assumed problem areas in pencil and hands it over. Dick settles on the edge of his bed with it, his eyes roaming over Jason’s detailed work. Jason pulls his knees up to his chest and picks at one of his cuticles that’s got dried blood on it. He has a bad habit of picking at his nails when he’s bored.

Jason knows this will take a while if Dick is going to mentally work out each problem. He snags Dick’s tablet from where he placed it on the bed and opens it up to see what he’s been working on. He notices the tabs are divided between Nightwing related work and videos centered around acrobatics. The longer he sits there sifting through the acrobatic videos, the more the conversation at the table starts to replay through his head. A heavy feeling still sits in his stomach about what he revealed.

He clears his throat. Dick doesn’t look at him, but Jason can tell by the ways he cocks his head that he’s paying attention. “Listen, about earlier… I was just trying to get Bruce off our back before he gave us some outrageous punishment. I didn’t mean to, well, you know, make you uncomfortable or whatever.”

Dick scribbles something on his paper. “No worries,” he says like he’s completely forgotten about it already. With how much information he constantly carries around in his head from his work as Nightwing, Jason’s not surprised. “At least now I don’t have to kill myself with worry over my routine.”

Jason pulls up a documentary about a wolf pack in another tab. He knows Dick won’t be able to resist watching it in favor of doing work. “That’s true,” Jason agrees. “I’m sure Morticia will be happy about the lack of blood, sweat, and tears.”

Dick laughs and finishes prodding at the paper. “I think she’ll still have to put up with that regardless of my routine.” He heaves himself up with a dramatic groan and passes the paper back to the desk. “Good job, no errors.” Jason just barely dodges getting a noogie from him. Dick takes his tablet back and buries it back under his arm. He definitely knows Jason did something with it. “I’ll see you down in the cave in a little bit. I’ve got to finish some research on a case.”

“See you,” Jason mutters just before Dick disappears back into the hallway. Once his footsteps fade away, Jason turns back to his desk and picks up his homework to see what Dick scribbled on it. It only takes him a second to realize that Dick didn’t write a correction on his page at all. Instead, in the right hand corner of the page is a pretty decent doodle done in Dick’s caricature art style. There’s a shaded skull with “To be or not to be” stamped across its forehead. Fluttering just above the skull are two bats. One is rather large and looks like it’s struggling to fly. The other bat is holding a piece of fruit that has a tag dangling off of it. The tag is clearly labeled with the words “From Jason” on it. It’s easy to identify the bats as Zubat and Morticia, but the real kicker is the small burrito that Zubat is holding in his mouth. It has a tiny Batman symbol on its wrapper.

Jason reaches for the pair of scissors on his desk and carefully cuts the drawing out. He looks around until he spots his copy of _Hamlet_ and makes a grab for it. Without smudging it, he edges the drawing between the pages where he left off paraphrasing earlier.

The small doodle may not be worth framing, but it’ll serve as a suitable bookmark for the time being.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm more comfortable writing in first person, so I'm sorry if I butchered that. 
> 
> Anyways, if you want to check out my Tumblr you can find me here: https://hood-ex.tumblr.com


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